Al-Qadim Adventures: Monsters Part 1

In order to keep with the flavor of the setting, I’ve ended up creating a few creatures to meet my needs. Included in this post are four monsters of low challenge, but, hopefully, rich flavor. It is my plan to use the -blessed and -touched designations to create something of a rough template for creatures moving forward. This mostly pertains to strengths and weaknesses, but it might touch on attacks, as well. I’ve also gotten into the habit of running “partial strength” creatures with some changes as threats for low-level parties. It’s been an interesting experiment so far, and I plan on continuing it. Enough of this, though. Let’s dive into the creatures.

First, why are only the mixed mephits in the base monster manual? That offends my Planescapian tendencies! No matter, it’s a small thing to have the elemental mephits make an appearance. The big thing you’ll notice below is a long list of damage resistances, however this is coupled with some vulnerabilities. The oddities, as I see them from an outsider’s perspective are probably the noncold-forged iron resistance, and the vulnerabilities. The idea with the cold-forged iron resistance is that each genie-type has weapons that specifically harm their kind. Yes, I know this is a traditionally fey-origin weakness, but as the elemental plane of air is a pretty ephemeral place in itself, and going with the idea of “grounding out”, it seemed appropriate. Plus, it’s a pretty common textual thing for fey and unseen elementals to be working together. Anyway, I think it will work.This is based on the strange weapons utilized by the holy slayers in the original text, and seemed like a neat thing to include.

Lightning Breath (Recharge 6).The mephit exhales a 15-foot cone of scalding steam. Each creature in that area must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw, taking 5 (1d10) lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The scorpions were an experiment in giving animals weird powers based on genies granting them power and using them as servants with base directions. The -touched designation is meant to be used with smaller creatures that appear in greater number, and the -blessed designation is meant to be used for bigger baddies, at low-level anyway. I would imagine there is a -infused, -possessed, or similar designations for higher potency things. I’m still working it out. I’m just trying to challenge while hitting theme, after all.

The weirdness here on the -touched scorpion is obviously the spellcasting. I wanted them to be clearly magical, and I’m always a big fan of trading defense for offense, and vice versa. Here we have some creatures with solid AC, bad saves (except dexterity), decent damage, and a way to become higher damage dealers that are then easily obliterated. As with the mephits, note the low hp. I’m trying to keep a lot of what I design within the elegant and wonderful minion parameters of 4th, without them being flat-out one hit kills. That feeling doesn’t quite fit 5th as I see it, but the idea of being initially overwhelmed and then paring them down quickly meets it quite well (in my mind).

Discharge. While mage armor is active, the djinn-touched scorpion may discharge a bolt of lightning at a creature that provokes an attack of opportunity from the djinn-touched scorpion. The creature must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw, taking 5 (1d10) lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. This action immediately ends the active mage armor.

ActionsMultiattack. The scorpion makes two attacks with its claws, or one attack with its tail.

Static Charge (recharge 6). The chitinous body of the djinn-touched scorpion crackles with lightning. The scorpion may discharge the lightning at a single creature within melee range as a bonus action. The creature must succeed on a DC 12 Dexterity saving throw, taking 13 (3d8) lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

If the scorpion moves at least 20 feet in a turn, it is able to lower the next recharge success number by 1.

If the scorpion is damaged by lightning or thunder damage, it is able to lower the next recharge success number by 1.

These recharge reductions may occur on the same recharge attempt.

ActionsMultiattack. The scorpion makes two attacks with its claws, or one attack with its tail.

Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 6 (1d8+2) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 12). The scorpion has two claws, each of which can grapple only one target.

Sting.Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 7 (1d10+2) piercing damage, and the target must make a DC 12 Constitution saving throw, taking 14 (4d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

The last creature that I have modified is the invisible stalker. The invisible stalker is awesome, but waaaaay too murderific for what I wanted to do. I wanted to pose a threat, but not make it out to specifically murder the party, and have them really have to think to solve the problem whether they brought the creature to combat, or were just attempting to thwart its goals. What I came up with was the area in question had wards against hostile genie-commanded creatures (as one of the players is playing a genie-blood sorcerer, this caused a few moments of hilarity). Thus, we have the ward-afflicted invisible stalker.

Cursed Invisibility. The wards against genies have made it impossible for the invisible stalker to move items without the items being visible. As long as the invisible stalker possesses an item from the warded area, the object is visible, and the invisible stalker may be targeted by spells that require sight. Melee and ranged attacks targeting the creature still have disadvantage, but spells that force saving throws have no penalties.

Faultess Tracker. The stalker is given a quarry by its summoner. The stalker knows the direction and distance to its quarry as long as the two of them are on the same place of existence. The stalker also knows the location of its summoner.

Confusion. While in a warded area, the stalker loses its faultless tracker ability, and will seek to avoid combat when possible.